BREEDING dressage horses is a specialised industry on the continent. Take the KPWN for example. Of its some 10,500 foals registered last year, 4,800 are dressage foals.

The majority of horses competed by Irish international riders are Dutch-bred. Both Judy Reynolds’s great servant Vancouver K (Broere Jazz) and Carolyn Mellor’s European championship horse Gouverneur M (Glock’s Voice) are KWPN-registered.

Esporim (Pagão), competed by Anna Merveldt, the second Irish rider at Hagen, is a Lusitano, another breed to enjoy a surge in popularity.

And while the popularity of dressage continues to climb in Ireland, there are relatively few breeders here focussing on breeding pure dressage prospects, compared to the continent. The majority of Irish breeders focus on show jumping, eventing, native breeds and/or traditional-bred markets.

Sligo’s Simone Hession combines both dressage and native breeds in her sterling work of promoting the Irish Draught horse in dressage with her team of Beezies-prefix Draughts.

Louise Doheny, based in the midlands at her Slieve Bloom Stud in Clonaslee, is another example. Her sole aim is to breed Olympic-calibre dressage horses by using the best continental lines.

She points to Tokyo Olympian Heike Holstein as an example of how it can be done. “Dressage is becoming much more popular in Ireland and I think many dressage riders here are very inspired by Olympian Heike Holstein who represented Ireland at Tokyo on her home-bred mare Sambuca.

“Slieve Bloom Stud has always been a dream of mine. I love dressage and I love working with stallions and as my daughter Sophia and I are both riders, it was just natural that we would want to breed our own horses, all of which we start under saddle here ourselves,” she said.

“Sophia (13) is riding and producing dressage ponies and last year she was selected for the Irish High Performance Development A Squad. She is working towards the Europeans next year.”

“At Slieve Bloom Stud, we aim to breed and produce dressage horses of Olympic standard in a classical way. We are standing 14 stallions here each breeding season and have 12 broodmares.”

She points out that all of the Slieve Bloom Stud stallions are descended directly from stallions who are proven sires of Olympic and world champions and ranked within the top 10 best dressage stallions in the world with the WBFSH (World Breeding Federation for Sport Horses).

“Such as De Niro who was the number one dressage stallion in the world for six out the of the last 10 years, Sandro Hit, San Amour, Florestan, Gribaldi, Belissimo M, Weltmeyer, Jazz, Sir Donnerhall, Totilas, Glamourdale, Desperado, Everdale, Ampere and Furstenball.

“We have had huge interest in our stallions, this year in particular, from riders looking to breed foals that they want to produce themselves.”

She currently breeds between nine and 10 foals each year. “If I feel a mare needs a break then I won’t put her in foal that year. I think it’s very important to use very well-bred mares as of course they contribute 50 per cent to the foal. Also, we have started all of our broodmares under saddle in the beginning so that we could see their temperament and rideability. etc.”

“Our plan with the stallions is that in the next few years we will start to compete with them internationally when they are at FEI level,” she added.

Taking on the continental big guns requires both determination and a dream. Louise Doheny has both.

Following in her mother's footsteps, Sophia Doheny is seen competing with her FEI pony Newoak Gold Rush